Main character

[shin.raijin]

I am playing story only, because gacha just isnt my thing.

Story is interesting, but my main character isnt part of my party.
Will i ever be able to level up his stats or equip him?

[tenshiakodo]

It doesn't appear to be the case. Some of the Spiral of Destinies battles do give your character to you, but with set stats and abilities (so far, always as a support character, ie, heals+buffs). I'm guessing the reason they didn't give us a character we could customize and build on our own is either that we'd end up using them all the time, and would have less reason to splurge on gacha characters, lol. OR, make them weaksauce to achieve the same goal.

[shin.raijin]

Yeah, I just noticed that after the first few missions, he just disappeared from the fights without any explanation/reason.

I came here because I saw many people saying that this game could be played for the storyline without ever doing the gacha part, but the gacha systems are encroaching on the story mode :(

[Meowish]

The main character later acts as the "Commander" in the game. Where you get to unlock his/her command skill (buff/debuff/damage spells) that you may use to ease your missions. The "Talent" skill tree is supposed to be his/her stats but it effects all the troops under his/her command. You get to unlock new skills there as well and his/her level acts as a level cap for the troops (characters).

For the Story Mode, it's a multiple-run design. Where you run for as long as you can until you can't or reached certain ending. Then you collect your rewards and restart the run, depending on your previous runs, you may unlock beacons and start from there... but most of the stuffs are reset and you have to do it all over again, so don't get too attached to them. For this mode, characters, skills and weapons might comes in randomly, so you are at the mercy of RNGoddess there... You may try to bring in characters you own and the skills they've unlocked, but that's it. They don't get extra benefits other than that, so they are only slightly better than those you can recruit in that game mode. -- The catch here is the ability/skill you unlock on the characters you brought in could be a game changer, especially if you have their high rank skills unlocked, which could be a sort of cheat start. But it's optional like what others tell you, you can do without them and try your luck with RNGoddess.

[shin.raijin]

I just see that there's plenty of systems to upgrade skills, weapons, talents, armor, etc.

...But they all require their own particular type of material.
Seems a bit unnecessarily convoluted, but they want many different resource choke-points I guess.

Lack of stamina has meant that I couldn't really farm these to craft the stuff I want like in a non-gacha game.

I guess thats how they try and get you..
You could just ignore all that and continue playing without optimizing, but the option is always very visible and within reach to make your life easier by shelling out 10$ lol

[Wyrtt]

I think you are confused. Story mode is a sepparate game mode. You can bring few characters from a gacha gameplay there but their will be lvl1 with no skills.

[Meowish]

Originally posted by shin.raijin:

I just see that there's plenty of systems to upgrade skills, weapons, talents, armor, etc.

...But they all require their own particular type of material.
Seems a bit unnecessarily convoluted, but they want many different resource choke-points I guess.

Lack of stamina has meant that I couldn't really farm these to craft the stuff I want like in a non-gacha game.

I guess thats how they try and get you..
You could just ignore all that and continue playing without optimizing, but the option is always very visible and within reach to make your life easier by shelling out 10$ lol

Not only Gacha games... If you think that gacha games are the only Online games out there trying to get your money, then you may want to try other none-gacha type of Online TRPGs...

Example:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/215080/WAKFU/

or if you prefer more mobile-ish with tons or RNGs and still doesn't want the Gacha.. you can try:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2343650/Waven/

Trust me, all online games want your money as badly as the gacha versions. You just get less gambling elements in those. For example, those mentioned above, Wakfu is the standard old school RPG with Tactical battle... whatever people hate about old school free-to-play monetization is there... the newer Waven is made like those RNG stages, but you get to keep your progress, with a catch, you need to keep RNG your luck until you get the skill or weapons you want/need, and those leads to new choke points where you will want to spend money. Ofcourse, there's always the skins and housing to get players to spend more... Well... some might say, at least it's not as bad as the Gacha games... well... i won't deny that there might exist some online games with a good heart and not rotten inside... but they are often rare or are in the "development stage", time changes most of those in the end and people started to complain again... with nowadays live service design in gaming platform... even "finished and offline game" gets to betray their customers... Disney Dreamlight Valley is a good example... it's an offline game, and yet it tried to sell you micro transactions...

[TigerNightmare]

Originally posted by shin.raijin:

I just see that there's plenty of systems to upgrade skills, weapons, talents, armor, etc.

...But they all require their own particular type of material.
Seems a bit unnecessarily convoluted, but they want many different resource choke-points I guess.

Lack of stamina has meant that I couldn't really farm these to craft the stuff I want like in a non-gacha game.

I guess thats how they try and get you..
You could just ignore all that and continue playing without optimizing, but the option is always very visible and within reach to make your life easier by shelling out 10$ lol

While it's grindy, I do enjoy the gradual progression, the tangible increase in power when I'm able to complete content that I wasn't able to the day before. You can totally do this without spending anything. If we could just max our characters from the start, then there's no progression and you just blast through new content as soon as it comes out. In the end, you end up spending most of your energy on Crossing Worlds in order to increase your Voyager level in order to progress The Fool's Journey,

[Darkhulk ʕ ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°ʔ]

Our main character does not take part in events, he is simply an observer / narrator.
In my opinion, the biggest drawback of campaign mode.

[Kheilus]

Lorewise, I assume that he is in the HQ while the Quests and Critical Battles occur in far off places. Not 100% accurate as we do see the MC in cutscenes in some of those battles. But the boss is sending dispatches, handling the ever dwindling lack of food and resources, and handling relations with three full fledged world powers. Seems like a busy person.
(Note that the OP asked about the main story, not the gacha or side stories of Fool's Journey. FJ always references Spirals of Destiny as the recommended starting place before playing an FJ chapter to get the full story.)